Purple Sandpiper

The Purple Sandpiper is an incredible, fascinating creature. Contrary to their name, they rarely display a purple color palette. The name comes from the slight, almost imperceptible sheen on their wings that is purple or violet in color.

About Purple Sandpipers

Having the northernmost winter range of all the shorebirds, they commonly breed in Arctic regions like Arctic Canada. Over the winter, they have been recorded to migrate through Greenland and Iceland.

An interesting fact to note about them is that the oldest Purple Sandpiper lived to be at least 20 years, 9 months to our recorded knowledge, and lived in Sweden. Now that you have been introduced to these birds, let us not waste any time in getting to know them!

● Purple Sandpiper Photos, Color Pattern, Song
● Purple Sandpiper Size, Eating behavior, Habitat
● Purple Sandpiper Range and Migration, Nesting

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Purple Sandpiper Color Pattern

Despite carrying the name Purple, these Sandpipers actually have a color palette that is mostly grey. Breeding adults have greyish upper-bodied and whitish underparts. They have busy, concentrated dark speckling on their breasts and flanks. Their backs and shoulders have feathers that have a reddish-brown outline. Their legs and the bases of their bills are orange. They have white supercilium, blackish brown mantles, and scapulars with chestnut or buff fringes. Their wings are dark grey with white fringed coverts. They have noticeable wing stripes across the base of their remiges. Their rump and central tail feathers are blackish and contrast with the gray lateral tail feathers. Their Basic Plumage has a slight purple sheen, giving them their name.

Nonbreeding birds are a rich slate grey, with a slight purple or violet tinge or duo-chrome gloss to some of their wing feathers. Juveniles have a similar color palette, with pale edging on the feathers of their upper parts, giving them their scaly appearance.

Description and Identification

These Sandpipers are medium-size, stoutly shaped shorebirds. Of all the shorebirds, in the winter they have the most northerly habitat distribution. They exist in small groups and live on rocky seacoasts of the North Atlantic shore.

These are also the most common shorebirds that winter on the eastern coast of Canada and are also common in Iceland and Greenland. These birds might be confused with other Sandpipers, so pay attention to this section to make sure you are identifying them correctly!

They can be confused with the Rock Sandpiper due to their build and size. However, remember that their ranges are unlikely to overlap. Their distinction from one another is tricky because of the several variations in the plumages of the Rock Sandpiper. The Aleutian Rock Sandpiper is the most similar in appearance to Purple Sandpipers. We can differentiate the two by remembering that in their alternate plumage, the Purple Sandpiper is darker in color and less rufous from above, and lacks the blackish patch seen on the Aleutian Rock Sandpipers’ breasts and bellies. In basic plumage, the pattern on the Purple Sandpipers’ underparts is more diffused, less distinctive, where Rock Sandpipers have more distinct spotting on their flanks and lower breasts. The legs and base of the bills of Purple Sandpipers can also be yellower.

Purple Sandpiper Song

Their vocalizations have not been studied in enough detail for us to identify them just by their song, but we do have information good enough to supplement our visual cues for identification.

These birds have a throaty, rolling call, known as the rhythmically repeated call. Their songs have a high degree of variability and the birds use different variations of the same songs for a variety of purposes. Males give the rhythmically repeated call during aerial displays, and stop the call immediately and abruptly after the display Is
over.

Their song is most frequent during display fights for their breeding territory. Males sing this loudly during territorial interactions and also during courtship displays and rituals. The song usually consists of two main parts that can be together or separate.

The first part is the announcement call, comprised of a graded, gradually louder series of rapidly repeating elements. The elements first increase and then decrease in frequency. This part is during the ascent of the bird. The second part of their song is the moaning call, consisting of long, lower frequency, rhythmically repeated elements. This part is during the descent of the bird.

Adult males can sometimes precede the main song with other calls, like a softer, short “cherrrr” noise, or a loud staccato “bi-bi-bi-bi” noise. Other common noises given out by these birds are “cher-weeet and chee-dee-dee-chip”.

Purple Sandpiper Size

These Sandpipers have medium-sized builds, with slightly drooping bills. Their average length for both sexes combined is 7.9-8.7 inches. Their average weight across sexes is 1.8-3.7 ounces, and their average wingspan length is 16.5-18.1 inches.

The adult females are, on average, larger than the adult males, and they have notably longer bills. Their size and build vary minorly according to breeding location.

Purple Sandpiper Behavior

Purple Sandpipers maintain a leisurely gait while walking or wading. They maintain this gate for foraging in the summer as well. When they are not foraging, they often rest on a single leg. At the sign of disturbance, they hop on that leg for a considerable distance before changing their gate to two-legged walking.

During the winter they walk rapidly and sometimes run from one feeding location to another. They are extremely agile birds and can find their way around rocks in intertidal areas. They also flutter to dodge the disturbances of waves.

Purple Sandpipers displays various kinds of walking and running during the breeding season and incubation periods. They also stand upright with their body erect and their necks extended in situations where they are alert.

These birds are usually reluctant to fly and like to move around on the ground unless they have no choice but to take flight. They are tame, approachable birds. When they have to fly between distant locations, they fly extremely fast, and close to the ground, with deliberate, full wing beats. Their takeoff is a direct rising from the ground, and their landings involve them gliding onto the ground from the air with fully extended wings. They also have different kinds of flights during the breeding season for different purposes including feeding, flocking, sexual behavior, and more.

These birds are highly agile swimmers, especially in the wintertime. The reason for this is that they feed in the surf zone, and they have adapted to swim easily. Despite their incredible skill, swimming is not a crucial mode of locomotion for them. They swim primarily when they are foraging and the waves disturb them. In the summertime, adult males lead the young broods across the stream to learn how to swim. These birds don’t dive, but the adults may submerge their heads in the water to forage.

They do not have specific times to preen, but they often enjoy a preening session after a feeding session. They vigorously rub their bills over their necks, backs, and bellies, and with more focus on their chest, breast and belly. Purple Sandpipers also go over their wing feathers. They bathe by waddling breast-deep into whatever water body is the closest to them.

Purple Sandpiper Diet

Purple Sandpipers have a diet consisting primarily of insects and mollusks. They enjoy a wide variety of insects, such as beetles, ants, fleas, and grasshoppers. Purple Sandpipers stick to insects during breeding season as they are easily available on their breeding grounds. They also enjoy spiders and worms.

Purple Sandpipers also eat small crustaceans that are readily available to them. Unlike other members of the Sandpiper family, they enjoy eating some plant material too. They enjoy eating berries, buds, seeds, leaves, and moss. This obviously depends on the terrain of their chosen habitat.

In the wintertime and during migration, their diet is only small mollusks like mussels, snails, and small crustaceans. They forage by waddling and clambering over rocks, making their way through seaweed, tundra, and beaches to look for food. On occasion, they may probe or dig lightly through the mud, but they usually find their food visually.

Purple Sandpiper Habitat

These birds gravitate towards cold tundra regions. In the high Arctic, they choose their nesting spots near areas with an abundance of prey and vegetation. They usually spend the wintertime on the rocky coasts of oceans or riversides. Purple Sandpipers make do with human material and are occasionally near docks. They do not usually choose areas of high elevation, but can perch when necessary. During migration, they forage on shorelines and in debris.

Range and Migration

Their range and migration vary according to the geography of the subpopulations. Even within populations, their range varies according to factors such as age and sex. In the fall, their migration typically begins with a departure in August, and the last flock of birds reaches their destinations by November. Their fall migration is far longer and more synchronized than their migration in the springtime. Their migration patterns in both the fall and the spring have a lot to do with their breeding timings and molting.

In North America, the birds pursue a southbound migration. After molting, the birds depart for the South by mid-September and reach by November. Summer migration is quite rare.

Northbound migration happens in the springtime when the birds come out of their wintering habitats in the south and pursue a journey to their breeding grounds. This usually happens in late May, and the birds arrive in their breeding spots by early June.

Purple Sandpiper Lifecycle

After the eggs have been laid, incubation is done by both males and females. This goes on until the clutch has been laid fully. The adults rarely leave the nest unattended for more than 3 minutes.

Once hatched, the chicks begin walking and exploring their habitat within just a few hours of hatching and develop eyesight and hearing capabilities on the day of their hatching. They also begin to preen and scratch themselves on the same day. Young chicks can walk and run slowly, and their parents brood them frequently. The chicks develop thermoregulation abilities shortly after and become independent from their parents at 7-9 days after hatching.

Nesting

These birds choose open tundra sites for their nesting, usually a wet site but occasionally high rocky sites. The nest itself is a shallow depression, which may or may not is lined by soft grass and leaves. The male makes up to 5 nest sites by scraping motions, and the female chooses one to lay. This activity is part of their courtship phase. Early pairs choose their nests as soon as early June.

They lay one brood per season, and copulation begins about 5 days before the female lays the first egg. They rarely reuse their nest cups but may reuse them in cases of replacement clutches.

Anatomy of a Purple Sandpiper

These birds are portly, pot-bellied shorebirds. They have extended bills that droop downwards. They have hooked toes that help them move around rocky and sandy terrain. Females are larger than males and have distinctly longer bills.

Final Thoughts

You must be keen to identify these birds, and luckily, they are not a conservationist’s concern. However, human activity has definitely had a bearing on their population. Historically, they have been hunted like a game for sport and marketing. Their eggs have also been collected frequently for observation and artifact, and more commonly for sale.

To know these birds better, we have to prioritize certain areas of research. For starters, their vocalizations are not intricately researched, making it difficult for us to identify them in situations with Rock Sandpipers present. Another area for pertinent research is the effect of pesticides and other human contaminants on their biology and lifespan.

Ornithology

Bird Watching Academy & Camp Subscription Boxes

At the Bird Watching Academy & Camp we help kids, youth, and adults get excited and involved in bird watching. We have several monthly subscription boxes that you can subscribe to. Our monthly subscription boxes help kids, youth, and adults learn about birds, bird watching, and bird conservation.

Bird Watching Binoculars for IdentifyingPurple Sandpipers

The most common types of bird watching binoculars for viewing Purple Sandpipers are 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. Bird Watching Academy & Camp sells really nice 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. You can view and purchase them here.

Purple Sandpiper Stickers

Stickers are a great way for you to display your love for bird watching and the Purple Sandpiper. We sell a monthly subscription sticker pack. The sticker packs have 12 bird stickers. These sticker packs will help your kids learn new birds every month.

Bird Feeders For Purple Sandpipers

There are many types of bird feeders. Bird feeders are a great addition to your backyard. Bird feeders will increase the chances of attracting birds drastically. Both kids and adults will have a great time watching birds eat at these bird feeders. There are a wide variety of bird feeders on the market and it is important to find the best fit for you and your backyard.

Bird HousesFor Purple Sandpipers

There are many types of bird houses. Building a bird house is always fun but can be frustrating. Getting a bird house for kids to watch birds grow is always fun. If you spend a little extra money on bird houses, it will be well worth every penny and they’ll look great.